All posts tagged: narco

A Montreal Narco Network Busted For Allegedly Smuggling Super Fentanyl Into America

A Montreal Narco Network Busted For Allegedly Smuggling Super Fentanyl Into America

Submitted by The Bureau’s Sam Cooper, An elite Montreal-based narco network allegedly exported carfentanil and next-generation synthetic opioids 100 times deadlier than fentanyl to American consumers via the dark web, leading to the arrest of four yesterday, after 13 months of joint surveillance by U.S. federal agencies and Quebec police, and a seizure of more than 600,000 tablets of synthetic drugs in December. The four suspects charged are reportedly connected, through their alleged street gang affiliate, to the Wolfpack Alliance — a network tied by DEA sources to a British Columbia fentanyl superlab, and by Canadian law enforcement and expert sources to Canadian outlaw motorcycle gangs, Iranian organized crime, and the Sinaloa Cartel. On Wednesday, Quebec’s ENRCO — the unit mandated specifically to target organized crime leadership — arrested four residents of Montreal’s South Shore suburbs on charges connected to a network that had been, for more than a year, allegedly manufacturing and exporting carfentanil and industrial quantities of substances newer and deadlier than fentanyl to consumers in the United States. The investigation was conducted …

The Download: Autonomous narco submarines, and virtue signaling chatbots

The Download: Autonomous narco submarines, and virtue signaling chatbots

“Too often, those victims have been left to fight alone…That is not justice. It is failure.” —Keir Starmer, the UK’s prime minister, outlines plans to force technology firms to remove deepfake nudes and revenge porn within 48 hours or risk being blocked in the UK, the Guardian reports. One more thing End of life decisions are difficult and distressing. Could AI help? End-of-life decisions can be extremely upsetting for surrogates—the people who have to make those calls on behalf of another person. Friends or family members may disagree over what’s best for their loved one, which can lead to distressing situations. David Wendler, a bioethicist at the US National Institutes of Health, and his colleagues have been working on an idea for something that could make things easier: an artificial intelligence-based tool that can help surrogates predict what the patients themselves would want in any given situation. Wendler hopes to start building their tool as soon as they secure funding for it, potentially in the coming months. But rolling it out won’t be simple. Critics …

The Download: Autonomous narco submarines, and virtue signaling chatbots

How uncrewed narco subs could transform the Colombian drug trade

Today, the Tayrona semisubmersible sits on a strip of grass at the ARC Bolívar naval base in Cartagena. It’s exposed to the elements; rain has streaked its paint. To one side lies an older, bulkier narco sub seized a decade ago, a blue cylinder with a clumsy profile. The Tayrona’s hull looks lower, leaner, and more refined. Up close, it is also unmistakably handmade. The hull is a dull gray-blue, the fiberglass rough in places, with scrapes and dents from the tow that brought it into port. It has no identifying marks on the exterior—nothing that would tie it to a country, a company, or a port. On the upper surface sit the two Starlink antennas, painted over in the same gray-blue to keep them from standing out against the sea. I climb up a ladder and drop through the small hatch near the stern. Inside, the air is damp and close, the walls beaded with condensation. Small puddles of fuel have collected in the bilge. The vessel has no seating, no helm or steering …

Costa Ricans head to the polls amid surge in narco violence

Costa Ricans head to the polls amid surge in narco violence

Costa Rica, a beacon of stability in Central America that is battling a surge in violence related to drug trafficking, goes to the polls on Sunday in elections that are expected to bring a tough-on-crime right-winger to power. Laura Fernandez, the 39-year-old candidate of outgoing President Rodrigo Chaves’s party, is the runaway favorite to become the next leader of the country flocked to by tourists for its sandy beaches, especially from the United States. Story by Simon Moritz. Keywords for this article Source link